They won’t say it publicly, but they’re expecting to do it. And it isn’t just wishful thinking.

Simply, the Texans enter the 2012 season as one of the best teams in the NFL.

The amount of good fortune required for a team to claim the ultimate football prize has finally reached a level for the Texans that it is realistic for them to set getting to and winning the Super Bowl as this year’s goal.

Super Bowl or bust? Of course not.

Bob McNair’s franchise has just moved into the contending neighborhood, and it should be here for a minute. Although it took a tad too long to get there, failure to claim the ultimate prize wouldn’t by itself be reason enough for him to tear the team apart.

Still, while the Texans should be standing on the championship porch for the next few seasons, it would be foolish for them to wait for the title door to open.

Why knock on the door one year, beat on it the next, then try to kick the you-know-what in? This city has been down that road before and failed with the Oilers.

This is a season the Texans, who went 10-5 in games they tried to win last season and won the first playoff game in their history, will deliver.

“We got that taste of the playoffs in our mouths, and now we know we can be successful and even more so,” said tight end Owen Daniels, who joined the team the year after the 2-14 disaster in 2005.

More teams have failed than succeeded. So?

While fun to talk about, history doesn’t win or lose games. Players and coaches do.
The Texans have championship-caliber players. A check of the names tells you how far the Texans have come since they were on the bottom rung of the NFL ladder.

Thus, expectations have gone from hoping to be respectable to expecting to win it all.
There is a nervous, almost edgy tension around Reliant Stadium. That is a good thing.
It isn’t fear. It isn’t anxiety. It isn’t panic.

It is anxiousness.

The Texans can’t wait to begin the 2012 season because they know what could be in store.

“Guys are eager to win,” said Manning, who went to the Super Bowl as a rookie with the Chicago Bears. “I would say, from past experience living in the hype, you can’t go off of that. It’s about what guys believe in the locker room. If you believe that we can make it to the Super Bowl and you work at that, it’s going to happen. If not, and you just live in the hype and say ‘they’re giving it to us,’ nothing’s going to happen.”

Super Bowl opportunities aren’t given as gifts; they must be seized. On both sides of the ball, the Texans are equipped to take this one.

They can throw a defense at New England that the Patriots can’t handle and an offense at Baltimore that the Ravens can’t handle. The others in the AFC are a notch below.

The NFC is probably the stronger conference, but in the Super Bowl, the Texans will be the most balanced team. (And they will win the rematch with Green Bay, by the way.)

I know practice games, aka preseason contests, show you a lot, but not everything. But there was no more impressive quarterback in the NFL this preseason than Schaub, who in five quarters of play completed 29 of 38 passes (76.3 percent) for 374 yards to post a 113.3 passer rating.

There isn’t a better running back in the league than Arian Foster. He and backup Ben Tate form the best tailback combination in the league and a scary running game.

Andre Johnson has dealt with a few injuries the last couple of years, but he is still one of the best wideouts in the league. The young receiving corps that will join him and Kevin Walter has shown more than enough playmaking skills to give the Texans one of the league’s top passing attacks.

Wade Phillips’ defense won’t be as good as last year’s, right? It doesn’t have to be. He didn’t even turn his defenders loose in the preseason, yet, like grocery boys, they continued to make sacking opposing quarterbacks look easy.

So what if Kareem Jackson struggles against most fade routes? So what if Derek Newton is a huge unknown at right tackle? So what if DeMeco Ryans, Mario Williams and Eric Winston are no longer here? So what if there are 12-year-olds in the stands who are bigger than Trindon Holliday?

The Texans aren’t Super Bowl contenders because of any one player, and they won’t be erased from the Super Bowl equation because of any one player.

Simply, this is one heck of a football team. They need a little luck, but the key is they need a little luck, not a lot.

“I appreciate the fact that people are saying a lot of good things about us,” coach Gary Kubiak said. “I think we’re going to have a good football team. But we want to be great, and we got some work to do.

“We just need to stay focused on us. We can’t stay focused on what’s going to happen in January. We need to stay focused on what’s going to happen Sept. 9 and get ready for Miami.”

Sept. 9 is the date of the season opener. Miami is the opponent.

The Texans may not be focused on the Super Bowl in New Orleans, and wisely so, but they’re thinking about it.